My Quest for Artistic Identity.

I was diagnosed with Dyspraxia and Dyslexia issues in 2014, which had seriously affected previous essay results and I began year six with enormous trepidation. The dissertation was looming on the immediate horizon and the diagnosis had caused me to consider ending my studies.

However, armed with the knowledge that I had lived with the issues all my life (without knowing it) and had coped with the effects throughout a successful career, I decided to meet the challenge of the dissertation and enrolled for the final year of study.

The first semester began with preparation for my dissertation, and a programme of workshops were offered to prepare and advise the students on their subject options and research. My selected subject was Damien Hirst and I chose to investigate his appropriations and exploitation of the art world and his dramatic rise to fame and fortune. Research proved to be challenging but enjoyable and with help and guidance from UCS Staff, I managed to complete a reasonably coherent dissertation.

I now eagerly await the results and continue to prepare new work in preparation for the final Degree Show.

The Mayor’s Portrait.

As part of Professional Practice study in year 5, I negotiated my first commission to paint a portrait of the Mayor of Ipswich, Councillor Hamil Clarke. This was my first portrait and it offered an opportunity to work in collaboration with the Mayor and Ipswich Borough Council and is my most significant project to date.

I was able to meet the Mayor in his chambers at Ipswich Town Hall where we discussed what the format might be. I tried to make him feel relaxed and he warmed to my vision of an informal portrait of him as a man, rather than a stock image of him in the mayoral robes. I prepared a number of sketches which were emailed for the Mayor’s approval, but no comments came forward. I therefore progressed with  my own vision of him nearing the end of his tenure with robes cast aside behind him, thus giving narrative to the work.

I referred to artists that had painted portraits of black males and was impressed by the work of Jonathan Yeo, as shown below. Because of the Mayor’s busy diary, there were no sittings and only one photo session was possible. Working from photos proved to be restrictive and I decided to begin with a freehand sketch on the canvas in an attempt to replicate the feeling of a sitting. I painted in oil and acrylic on a 90cm x 70cm canvas, and the work took approximately 200 hours to complete, and was presented to the Mayor at Ipswich Town Hall on 21st May 2014. As a business contract, the collaboration was successful, but I was less than satisfied with the likeness of the image. I was pleased that I captured the Mayor’s character, and the conceptual element of narrating his retirement. It was however very disappointing to learn that, after so much effort, I was not allowed to present the work for assessment at UCS.

Below: Jonathan Yeo’s portraits:

Below: My photographs and work in progress.

Year 5 Show.

However, other  work in year 5 proved to be equally significant  in my journey towards  artistic “Identity” and the images attached show a style that I am keen to develop further.

The fishermen, entitled Aldeburgh Fog1 was painted in enamel on 1 meter square aluminium composite board and is the first of a series I intend to produce in 2015.

The figurative painting entitled The Abyss is painted in acrylic on an 80cm x 60cm canvas and will feature in a future series of figurative work.

I have referred to the work of Andy Warhol, Allen Jones, Gary Hume and Julian Opie, and examples of their work are shown below.

The printed images and colours of Opie and Warhol have influenced my painting and I have adapted this as elements of abstraction in my painting. The work of Hume and Jones has also given me inspiration to use colour and alternative grounds for my work and Jone’s abstracted figurative paintings showing movement and colour have been particularly inspiring.

Below: My paintings and work in progress.

The Project Brief for Semester 2 was to produce one piece of work, incorporating each of the chosen study subjects.
Life drawing and painting inevitably formed a basis for the work and, following the death of my Mother, I chose to portray woman’s life as a trilogy entitled: “ WOMAN – Mind, Body and Soul.”  Based upon a construction format, and taking individual pieces from my work as a collection to portray a conceptual view.

Personal experience of a partner’s breast cancer gave me further incentive to comment on ageing and illness and the Trilogy would also include illustrations of beauty, ugliness, money, greed and death.
The piece was completed by a wooden skeletal sculpture, which represented death and re-birth, as a tribute to my Mother.
The  construction is of 3 steel cages on a platform, which can be seen  as the  symbolic imprisonment experienced by many women, during 3 stages of their lives.
Although represented from a male point of view, the piece was developed from my own life experience and is intended to conceptually portray a provoking and sympathetic view.
The work was inspired by one of my earlier sketches of a concept of MAN,s symbolic imprisonment, as shown below:

Using my own photographs as a source, I experimented with digital media, abstraction and colour. My reference was from Pop Art and work by Andy Warhol, as well as more contemporary painting and story telling, by Allen Jones and Andy Warhol, as shown below. Their use of colour and contrast is something that I admire.

A selection of my photographs shown below.

A study field trip to Aldeburgh in 2013 provided  valuable photographic material for my future work a small selection of which is shown below, with a 2 minute sketch of the moor.

In 2012, an organised trip to London and the Tate Modern, introduced me to Contemporary/Conceptual Art and although I went along with an open mind, I found that blank monitor screens, and collections of detritus with pretentious, elitist labelling offered very little evidence of craftsmanship, and I was left cold and uninspired by the experience.

However, a field trip to Orford Ness in Suffolk, provided a rich source of material for my work. I was struck by the contradiction of beauty and ugliness within the wild natural landscape, when seen in contrast to the legacy of redundant, degraded, man made fabrications.

My work is driven by the concept of man’s destruction of a beautiful, wild landscape. My attempt to portray that contrast is represented by conceptual images including:

Contrast1 an inverted black and white oil painting on a small canvas board. Contrast2 a black/white and red illustration of beauty and ugliness with hazard warning signs and a warning sky. Legacy a cardboard construction with edited contrasting photographs and detritus from the site.

Below is a selection of my photographs and images from the Orford visit.

NOTE: CAPTIONS SHOW WHEN IMAGES CLICKED/OPENED INDIVIDUALLY.